bringing the rise of elected islamist governments in egypt and elsewhere -- and a raging civil war in syria. here, too, stark rhetoric masks murky differences. romney says he'd do more to arm syria's rebels but has not said the u.s. would do the arming. the obama white house has resisted doing so, for fear heavy weapons would end up with anti-american jihadists or terrorists. vali nasr is dean of the johns hopkins school of advanced international studies. >> the differences between the candidates at the moment do not appear very large because our response to the arab spring has been fairly consistent across both political parties. >> in afghanistan, likewise, the two candidates agree on withdrawing the remaining 68,000 combat troops by the end of 2014. and after 2,000 american dead there, 4,000 in iraq, and tens of thousands wounded, neither candidate, much less the american public, seems to have the stomach for another major ground war. the danger in all this, says vali nasr, is that after all this post-9/11 turmoil and war, and the killing of al qaeda leader osama bin laden, the u.s